


the world laughs

by nxttime



Series: Whumptober 2019 [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Whumptober 2019, hopw you like!, i banged this out in like..., i dont know, that shit hurted, three hours, we say ow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-25 15:50:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20914619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nxttime/pseuds/nxttime
Summary: Whumptober prompt day 5: GunpointJason and Tim deal with a situation at Gotham National Bank, and things take a hard left.





	the world laughs

**Author's Note:**

> yes I am doing whumptober, no I don't care that this is late, no I don't know if i'm going to continue this fic :D
> 
> enjoy!

There’s something about hostage situations that always has ants crawling under Jason’s skin. Something about them that makes the hairs on his arms tingle, gives him the prickling feel of anxiety.

He doesn’t know what it is, probably won’t figure it out unless he really  _ tries  _ to--and he knows he won’t try to--so he lives with it.

But hostage situations involving  _ kids  _ make the seas of green slam down on his mind, on his heart, on his  _ soul  _ and wild spitting rage fills his veins. Because they are  _ children. _

So he feels nothing but contempt as he puts a gun to the head of one of the scouts. 

He doesn’t need to kill him, he knows, because it’s a Saturday so there’s only a handful of fourth-graders protectively hidden behind some high school juniors and seniors, who are behind handfuls of parents and other adults at the bank. He knows he  _ shouldn’t  _ be killing the men that were keeping these children hostage, knows he shouldn’t waste ammo, shouldn’t wreck what he’s been working  _ hard  _ at repairing.

“The next time you get the chance to,” Jason hisses, pressing the gun harder against the man’s temple,  _ “thank,  _ Batman. He’s the only reason you’re not meeting God right now.”

The scout is unconscious with a  _ hard  _ pistol-whip that will definitely hurt like a bitch later on, and Jason goes back to making his way to the group of corralled civilians.

_ “Double R to Hood, can you hear me?” _

Jason makes a face, holstering his pistol, shedding his jacket, and shaking his arms out as he started to climb up to the bank’s rafters.

_ “Oracle, can he hear me?” _

_ “He can hear you.” _

_ “Red Hood, Oracle says you can hear me.” _

“I,” Jason quietly snaps into his comm once he’s reached the rafters, “am  _ doing something.” _

_ “Would that something, by any chance, have to do with the situation we have at Gotham National Bank?” _

He’s going to throttle that kid the next time he sees him, that’s it.

“Yes,” he growls out, moving along the rafters so that he’s right above where the group is gathered.

_ “Cool. Hi, how’s it hanging?” _

Jason is very proud of the fact that he doesn’t immediately shove Tim off the beam he’s crouched on when the teen somehow--Jason doesn’t even fucking know  _ how-- _ pops up to his left.

“I’m going to kill you,” he says.

Tim laughs quietly. “Yeah, tell that to Robin; he’s been trying for a few years.”

“I’m going to kill both of you,” Jason easily compromises.

Tim just laughs again and Jason rolls his eyes.

“So,” Tim says with a little hum. “We ever going down there to kick ass, or…”

“You’re just as bad as Nightwing,” Jason mutters, picking that moment to jump down onto a gunman.

“Jokes on you,” Tim answers, dropping down to land in a crouch at the head of the group, “I take that as a compliment.”

Jason scowls and elbows the guy he landed on in the chin, quickly surging to tackle the third gunman afterward as Tim dealt with the second, fourth, and fifth.

“Did you two swap personalities or something?” he calls, ducking under the rifle as it swings towards his head. “You’re acting awfully Dickish right now.”

His response is delayed a few seconds, as he finishes off his opponent, and Tim snarks back, “You’re acting awfully Red Robinish right now.”

_ “That doesn’t even make sense.” _

“So?”

Tim laughs as he keeps working through the rest of the gunmen, Jason working on checking in with the GCPD and escorting hostages out. He’s not overly concerned for his little brother; Tim can handle these guys. They’ve dealt with situations like these tons of times before.

He is however an older brother, so he  _ does  _ have a little,  _ tiny, _ coiling tendril of icy fear in his gut, no matter how many times he tells himself  _ Tim can handle this, there was only twelve, nine were unarmed. _

_ Nothing is going to happen,  _ he thinks to himself as he hands off a little girl, her big brother, and her dad off to GCPD custody.  _ Tim can handle it. He can. _

Anxiety starts to seep into his blood, though, and the little trickle of chilly fear in his gut  _ snaps  _ when he hears rapid gunfire and Tim’s shout of pain carries over the comm.

Jason’s running back to Tim’s last location in seconds, the fear making adrenaline rush through his body and mind, the green touches of the Lazarus that’d been lurking around entirely banished by the sheer enormity of his concern.

The hallways seem longer than they had before, which is a typical cliché, but that doesn’t matter because they suddenly  _ are.  _ The time is ticking by too fast and too slow, he can’t move his body fast enough, can’t  _ reach  _ Tim but he’s--he’s  _ almost  _ at the door and--

And the door slams open when Jason rams himself against it. He skids to a halt when he sees two gunmen and his little brother remaining conscious.

His heart  _ lurches  _ when one of the gunmen kick at Tim’s head, and the gun is in Jason’s hands, cocked, and aimed, before he even knows what he’s doing.

“Get away from him!” Jason yells. “Right now!”

Their heads snap over to him and the second gunman grabs Tim by the underarms and shifts the positioning so he’s holding a pistol to Tim’s head.

Bile rises in Jason’s throat at the situation he’s found himself in.

Tim is bleeding from his nose and there’s probably a cut in his scalp because he’s  _ bleeding  _ and it’s pretty  _ heavy,  _ the domino’s cracked--a hard hit to the cheek from the butt of one of the rifles, Jason would have to guess--and there are a few pieces of it in Tim’s skin, and Jason can’t--he--that’s his little brother they’re holding there and Jason will fucking  _ end them both-- _

But he… Can he?

_ Yes,  _ he mentally hisses at himself, hand tightening around the gun’s grip.  _ Fuck Bruce and his code, Tim is going to  _ die  _ if I don’t do anything! _

_ “Hood.” _

Tim’s voice is cracked and weak as it comes over Jason’s comm, and his thoughts falter at the sound.

“Red?” he asks carefully, not at all liking where he thinks this conversation is going.

_ “M’gonna be okay. Don’t. Not worth it.” _

Rage rushes through Jason, renewed and fueled by Tim’s words.

“If you say that  _ ever  _ again, I’ll put a bullet in your leg--”

_ “Shut up,”  _ Tim says in a tired huff.  _ “Meant them. They’re not worth it. Don’t throw it all ‘way ‘cause of ‘em.” _

“I’d be throwing it away for  _ you--” _

_ “Don’t.” _

Jason’s grip on the gun is so tight he can feel his knuckles crack.

“Let us go, Hood!” Gunman number one yells, gesturing wildly with his gun as he and gunman number two--who is holding Tim--start shuffling for the exit to their left. “We’ll kill ‘em! We’ll kill ‘em if you don’t!”

Jason does nothing as he watches them, only his head moving to follow them as he lowers the gun, muscles screaming and jaw clenched tight as he lets his hands hang.

When they’re standing in front of the door, gunman one and two look at each other, shove Tim forward and onto the ground, and start to turn.

The guns are back in Jason’s hands in seconds and he fires two shots after them, running for his little brother.

He misjudged just how far they were when he’d shot at them, and hadn’t thought about their fight or flight responses.

Gunman two flinches and sprints out, but gunman one tenses up, turns back, pulls his trigger  _ more  _ than once as he fires wildly, and books it after his friend afterwards.

One of the bullets catches Jason across the side of his neck--superficial, probably won’t need stitches but it  _ burns-- _ before he could duck, but he isn’t even really  _ concerned  _ with himself because Tim had  _ screamed. _

He hadn’t cried out, hadn’t grunted, hadn’t yelled--he’d  _ screamed. _

They were gone by the time Jason was staggering back to his feet, but the police were probably going to start swarming into the room soon, so Jason and Tim weren’t going to be alone for long but--

_ “Tim!” _

For the second--third?--time tonight, Jason’s running for his little brother. This time, though, Tim is crumpled and curled up painfully on the floor, and there’s a growing,  _ far  _ too dark pool of blood crawling out from the--the goddamn  _ pooling blood  _ already collecting underneath him.

Tim’s breaths are shallow and short when Jason drops to his knees next to him, and there’s a panic in Jason’s chest, in his mind, in his gut--has he become it? Is he anything that isn’t paralyzed with fear? He doesn’t know--and Jason frantically looks for the wound that’s bleeding so heavily and so darkly-- _ has to be an artery somewhere, it’s way too much and way too dark to be anything else-- _ and he finds the injury he’s looking for soon.

_ Femoral artery is punctured, through-and-through. Needs to be bandaged, needs a  _ hospital,  _ because this can’t--can’t be fixed in the ‘cave, and it’s too far anyways, shit, shit, shit… _

“Don’t you fucking die on me, Babybird,” Jason barks out as he fumbles for bandages in one of Tim’s pouches. “I swear to God I’ll drag your ass out of hell just to beat you six ways to Sunday if you do.”

Tim doesn’t reply but to scream again when Jason moves his leg, and it occurs to Jason that,  _ fuck. Is there another bullet still stuck in there? _

Officers are now pouring into the room, yelling into their radios, and it hits him like a freight train.

There are ambulances outside.

In seconds Tim is in Jason’s arms--he screamed, he screamed again and Jason isn’t going to be able to take that much longer, his little brother shouldn’t  _ scream like that-- _ and he’s shoving by officers, yelling at them harshly to  _ Move out of the way!  _

Tim shudders in Jason’s arms when they make it outside, and Jason immediately heads for one of the available ambulances still standing by, Tim’s blood a warmth Jason doesn’t want to feel as it runs down his arms.

“Help him!” he shouts at the EMTs standing by the ambulance.

The man turns, looks at him, looks at Tim in his arms, and immediately starts telling his partner to set things up and find the driver.

“What’s the damage,” the EMT asks, immediately walking over to meet Jason.

“His femoral artery--its punctured, more than once, and only one was a through-and-through. There’s another bullet in his leg.” Jason hates to pass Tim off, he  _ despises it,  _ but he sets Tim down on the gurney that’s provided to them.

The EMT nods as the ambulance’s engine turns on, quickly starts scribbling notes in his clipboard, gives his companion a few instructions, then immediately starts grabbing supplies from their compartments.

Jason just stands there and he can’t--can’t breathe, Tim’s not in his arms anymore, he’s with the EMTs, but Jason’s arms suddenly feel  _ far  _ too empty, he can’t let Tim go, can’t leave him  _ alone-- _

“Oracle,” he says, and his voice is unrecognizable even to himself, “Red Robin and I are en-route to Gotham General.”

_ “Hood, you know you’re not supposed to--” _

“Red Robin might  _ die,”  _ Jason snaps as he takes a seat far enough to give the EMTs room to work, “so  _ excuse me  _ if I don’t give a rat’s ass about Batman’s stupid fucking protocol.”

_ “...alright. Fine. But I’m sending Nightwing too.” _

“Wouldn’t expect anything else from you.”

_ “Keep me updated.” _

“Isn’t that what you’re sending fucking Nightbitch for?”

_ “You know exactly why I’m sending him,”  _ Barbara erupts.  _ “Don’t think just because Red, Batman, and Nightwing forgave you we all have.” _

Her words are sharp and cut into Jason like a scalpel.

“Whatever,” he says before disconnecting.

Tim is hooked up to vital monitors now, and Jason goes numb as his eyes slide to the scar exposed on his little brother’s neck. 

The scar he’d put there.

He forces his gaze away to the monitors again because, if he keeps looking at it, he’ll throw up with disgust and regret and self-loathing.

Jason goes ignored by the EMTs the entire ride, which he doesn’t care about. Tim needed them.

He needs them more than he’d ever need Jason.

* * *

_ All my grief says the same thing _

_ This isn’t how it’s supposed to be _

_ This isn’t how it’s supposed to be _

_ The world laughs, holds my hope by the throat, and says: _

_ “But this is how it is.” _

_-Fortesa Latifi_


End file.
